COMPUTERIZED OPERATION IN THE DIAGNOSTIC RADIOLOGY DEPARTMENT

¹ Professor and Chairman of Radiology.
² Formerly Assistant Professor of Radiology, now in private practice in Lubbock, Texas.

The potential for error and inefficiency in a diagnostic radiology department is great. We have a complex multi-step process through which many patients pass each day. The system is utterly dependent upon humans who being human may tire, forget, or become bored. Unfortunately, some may also be poorly trained or simply inadequate to their task.

The digital computer has the potential to solve many of our problems. It is capable of functioning at whatever level our best human brains are capable of instructing it to. The computer never tires, never forgets, and does best that which the human does least well—it dotes on repetition. Diagnostic radiology is in an ideal position to make maximal use of the computer. Our information is simple to insert into the computer since so much of it is already typed rather than handwritten.

Once the computer becomes a part of the department’s operation there are many other services it can supply. These range from automated control of mechanical devices to management information to assistance in roentgenographic interpretation.

Radiology is still far from optimally putting computers to work.⁹ Much of this delay is due to the high costs involved. But costs of computer use will decrease and demand on radiology will increase. Thus falling and rising lines must cross on the graph with resulting economic feasibility. It is imperative that we work out our system of the "future" now at a relatively leisurely pace rather than as a crash program later.

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